Sunday, March 10, 2013

Al Kamen clues us in to "Who sits where in the White House"

Just recently we followed our WaPo pal Al Kamen's tips on realignment in Senate office space following the death of Hawaii Sen. Daniel Inouye. Now Al is updating us on an even more important D.C. real-estate issue: "Who sits where in the White House." This isn't just a matter of comfort or convenience. We know how frantically White House personnel jockey for position, meaning the position that puts them closest to the actual seat of power in the building.

That's why I wanted to make sure no one missed this important update, which comes with nifty new technology. The actual webpage to which Al directs us, "Inside the West Wing," is interactive -- you can click on any room on either floor and get a pop-up that tells you who hangs out there, and what he/she is doing there, at least officially.

Location, location, location, the real estate folks tell us. And the primo location for an office in Washington is the West Wing of the White House. With that in mind, we’ve updated our interactive map of the first and second floors of the West Wing to show who’s sitting where.

One thing regular readers will notice is that about two-thirds of the people now closest (in terms of proximity) weren’t in those spots when we first launched the map in January 2009.

Some, of course, were at other agencies — Gene Sperling was at Treasury, for example — while others were out of government, such as communications director Jennifer Palmieri, who was at the Center for American Progress.

Other officials are making internal moves. Denis McDonough, having moved up from the White House ground floor (not shown on our chart) to a small office as deputy national security adviser, now gets the relatively spacious chief of staff’s office down the hall from the Oval Office.

Alyssa Mastromonaco, former director of scheduling and advance, was on the ground floor in 2009, but as deputy chief of staff, she’s now moved right next door to the president’s study.
Many jobs — for example, the legislative affairs post — have turned over more than once since Obama moved in.

With the dust pretty much settled since the transition — there’s only one office in the communications area that’s not filled — the team seems pretty much in place for the second term.

You can find the interactive map at wapo.st/west-wing. Simply click on the offices to see who sits where. There are brief bios of all and photos of most of them. (We’re still working on a few.)